Blackhawks notes.

All News Not Bad: Grieve Says He's Ready To Play Again

Help is on the way for the Blackhawks. Brent Grieve, a gritty winger who has been out since suffering torn knee ligaments in a game in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, says he's ready to play.

"I'm cleared for Wednesday," Grieve said Sunday. "I can't wait.

Hopefully, I can make an impact and help these guys get back on track."

The original prognosis was that Grieve could miss as much as eight weeks, and it will be exactly six weeks when he returns. He has been skating for the last two weeks and said the knee felt fine earlier, but "you've just got to be careful and make sure it's pretty solid before you come back."

Grieve missed 18 games with the injury, which came on a play similar to the one that put Jeremy Roenick out for the season. Grieve had played 18 games and scored his first goal in the game in which he was hurt.

Russell still mending: Defenseman Cam Russell's return is not quite so certain. Russell had the cast changed on his broken left hand Friday, but "it still hasn't started to heal yet," he said Sunday.

"They said it takes 10 to 14 days before it starts to mend and that's when you can put a soft cast on it." Russell suffered the injury last Sunday in the same game in which Roenick suffered his knee injury.

As soon as the hand starts to heal, Russell said, "They're going to put a small playing cast on and mold it to the shape of my stick so I can play with it."

Kudos from Savard: His first game back may have been a losing one, but Denis Savard still thinks the Hawks are "the best team I've ever been on. Even though I won a Stanley Cup with Montreal, we won it because of the goaltender that year. This is a good team. This team can go a long, long way, if not all the way."

And from Diduck: Newly arrived defenseman Gerald Diduck also likes his new team's chances. "The system they play here is a great playoff system," he said. "If it's played well you can go a long way with it."

Hawks coach Darryl Sutter singled out Diduck as one of the few who played it well Sunday.

"You want to be one of the best players every night," Diduck responded. "When you come to a new team you've got a lot of energy and you want to keep that up every night."

Wings' McCarty hurt: Detroit right wing Darren McCarty was on crutches after the game and may have incurred ligament damage to the outside of his left knee in the wake of a first-period hit from the Hawks' Brent Sutter.

"It wasn't the hit, it was the way I fell," said McCarty, who did not know if he would accompany the team to Dallas or return to Detroit. What he did know was that he would undergo an MRI on Monday to determine the extent of the damage.